by Mark Silva DENVER -- Under a cloudless and darkened sky on a cool night on a field a mile high, Barack Obama walks the length of a dark blue-carpeted stage with a lighted colonnade evocative of the West Wing...

by Mike Dorning and Mark Silva Roland Burris of Illinois, rejected in his attempt to take a new seat in the Senate this morning, averted any public showdown by quietly accepting the refusal of his credentials inside the Secretary of...

So ... how many people DID watch yesterday's big event? Answer: 29.2 percent of all TVs in the top 55 cities were tuned to the inaugural. That's the word - or rather figure - from Nielsen, which should provide...

by Mark Silva In swift congressional action on a massive but disputed economic stimulus plan that the White House promises will deliver millions of jobs, the House approved the measure this evening by a 244 to 188 vote split along...

by Mark Silva They're having some fun with Timothy Geithner's handwriting over at the Huffington Post, where a photo of the Treasury secretary's notepad at today's congressional hearing has prompted some pseudo-science about what the pad says of the...

by Mark Silva and Christi Parsons, updated at 3:30 pm EDT With the confirmed retirement of Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, President Barack Obama said today that he will seek a replacement with "a sharp and independent mind,'' and...

by Mark Silva We're struck, at the start of this new decade, with the image of a first family returning from the holidays and getting ready for the winter run of school. For all that's going through the political minds...

by Mark Silva Three presidents from opposing parties stood united outside the White House this morning to signal the launch of an aggressive private fundraising drive for the earthquake-stricken nation of Haiti. "These two leaders send an unmistakable message

by Mark Silva and updated Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who presided over the federal government's handling of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, has won Senate confirmation for a second four-year term today. Bernanke's second term

Blacks are hip to the "political lecture."
No, not the one about acting properly around law enforcement and trigger-happy policing. This particular bit of chastisement surfaces around election time when the political punditry starts bemoaning that black people keep putting too many of their eggs in one party's basket.
You know the drill: We tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats and against "our interests." It really got bad when Barack Obama showed up and won the presidency — twice....

Five of the last six U.S. Open golf champions were previously 0-for in majors. Curtis Strange believes the trend could well continue this week at Congressional Country Club near Washington, D.C.
A Hampton Roads native and ESPN analyst, Strange understands majors and this course. He had three consecutive top-10 finishes at Congressional when it hosted the Kemper Open during the 1980s and, most famously, he won back-to-back U.S. Opens in 1988 and '89, the last man to repeat as national champion.
Among...